


Calling Control

by UchiHime



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Goodbyes, M/M, Moving On, Next-Gen, Parent!lock, Parentlock, Post Reichenbach, Sad, Trains, hamex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 23:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UchiHime/pseuds/UchiHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Fall, Hamish just wants to get away and Alex just wants to regain control. Two train tickets. No breath. A missed call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calling Control

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this story was written on my writing Tumblr (1and1is2). I felt the need to write something sad and this is what I came up with.

Hamish stared at his cell phone, debating exactly what he was going to say or even if he was going to make the call at all. He was standing outside Kings Cross Station with a backpack filled with a few precious belongings, alternating between watching the people pass him by and staring at his mobile.

A woman rushed by, holding on to the hands of two small children and berating them for moving too slowly, declaring they would miss the train if they didn’t hurry. The youngest child’s shoes were untied and his hair was sticking up at odd angles as if he’d tried to rub in down with his fingers but it would not be tamed without a comb. The other child wore a wrinkled shirt with a juice stain down the front and was wearing mismatched socks. It was obvious the children had woken only recently and had been giving hardly any warning before being dragged out of the house.

Hamish pressed the button on the side of his phone to unlock the screen. He stared at the wallpaper on the tiny screen with a look of longing in his eyes.

A man rushed by carrying a briefcase and yelling animatedly into his headset in a language Hamish thought might be German. He was gesticulating wildly, his face was an unhealthy shade of puce, and he was practically spitting as he yelled at the unlucky being on the other side of his phone. He pushed passed an old lady, nearly knocking her over, but didn’t even stop to offer an apology.

Hamish opened his screen up to the contacts listing and scrolled down to the third name on the list (the same person he would have gotten had he just hit speed dial number five). 

A teenager had gone to the aforementioned old lady’s side, taking the time to check and see if she was ok and offering to help carry some of her bags. The old woman smiled at him, but declined his help.

Hamish closed his eyes and pressed the talk button on his phone, slowly raising it to his ear. He held his breath for a single second, waiting to hear the familiar ringing…

 _“Hi, you’ve reached Alex’s phone,”_  the voicemail picked up. _“This is Hamish speaking, Alex can’t come to the phone right now because…”_

_“Hamish, what are you doing!” Alex’s voice yelled from the background._

_“Nothing,” Hamish’s own voice sang back._

_“Are you playing with my phone?”_

_“No!”_

_“Hamish!”_

_“Right, so Alex can’t come to the phone because…”_

_“Hamish Holmes give me that phone!”_

_“Because he’s too busy loving me!”_

_“Hamish, I’m going to kill you!”_

_“Leave a message at the beep!_ ”

Hamish didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or cry. He’d once asked Alex why he had never changed his voicemail greeting after Hamish had done this over a year ago. Alex had shrugged and said that involved more effort than he was willing to put into and and the current greeting was fine. Hamish had laughed and teased him about “loving” him so much that he wanted the whole world to hear it on his voicemail.

The phone beeped.

“Hey Alex, this is Hamish. I know I should have called you sooner, but…well… with the way things are right now… Anyway, I just… I’m at Kings Cross Station. There’s a train leaving town in an hour and I’m going to be on it. After everything that’s happened, I can’t be here anymore. I can’t bear it. So. I’m leaving. I don’t know where I’m going to end up, but I promise you it’s going to be somewhere far away from here. I’m leaving this all behind, but… For some reason, just the thought of leaving you behind is something else that is more than I can bear. So, I bought two train tickets. One of them is yours if you want it. If you don’t want it, I’ll understand, just… Well… Yeah, so the train leaves in an hour, in case I don’t see you, just know that… I…we… What we had is something I’ll always cherish. I love you. Goodbye.”

* * *

Alex stepped into the shower and let the hot water wash over him, melting away his pains and his grief and his cares and his worries and his frustration and his fear. He felt so drained. Just completely and utterly drained. He wanted this all to be over. The media attention. The rumors spreading. The lies being told. The pressure of dealing with the outside world. He just wanted it to be over.

Alex was tired. So very tired. He hadn’t had a moment to himself since the day Jim Moriarty and sprayed his brains all over the roof of Barts and Sherlock Holmes had went plummeting to his demise off the top of that same building. And in the aftermath of the great showdown, the men’s families and friends had been left standing in the spotlight. And now, all Alex wanted to do was take some time to unwind, to gather himself, to organize his thoughts, to deal with this situation in his own way.

The water turned his skin red on contact and the heat from the water’s steam was making his face sweat. Alex leaned forward and let the water wash over his head, pasting his dark blond hair to his scalp and the sides of his face. He always enjoyed showers at temperatures most people thought insane. He’d actually been accused of using the shower as a form of self-flagellation. But this wasn’t about causing himself pain. He just genuinely enjoyed the heat.

He stood under the water for an unmeasured amount of time. After a while, he started to hold his breath. This was self-flagellation. It was something he’d started doing as a child. He’d had a mild case of asthma that he’d later outgrown, but back then whenever he found it difficult to breathe, he would hold his breath instead. Later, he started holding his breath when he was upset with himself, when he was annoyed, angry, sad, desperate, pissed, or just too emotional. He enjoyed the burn in his lungs, the way his body desperately screamed for air, the dizziness that came from denying it too long. When he finally released his breath, it was a relief. A rush. A purification. Some people cut themselves; Alex suffocated himself; it was all the same. Once he could breathe again, he had control again.

The dizziness of holding his breath was intensified by the heat of the shower. He wobbled in place and reached out a hand to steady himself. Slowly he released his held breath and he felt grounded.

Now that he had his control back, Alex made quick work of washing himself and got out of the shower. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist, vacating the bathroom as quickly as he could.

There was no reason for him to be in a hurry to dress. There was no one home. The only people ever home with him was Jim and Seb. But now Jim was….and Seb hadn’t been home since. It was just him here.

Alex’s stomach growled. His feet left wet footprints across the hard wood floor and his hair and body dripped a path trail of drops and splashes that marked his progress towards the kitchen. He headed straight towards the cabinet next to the refrigerator and grabbed a jar of peanut butter. Letting his towel fall to the floor, Alex hopped up onto the counter and opened the jar. He dug his fingers inside.

This was something else he used to do as a child: sit on the kitchen counter and eat peanut butter straight from the jar with his fingers. Seb had hated it. He never said anything, but Alex could see it in his eyes. Jim had been entertained by the act, probably because he knew it set Seb to odds, and would indulge Alex this action.

Alex concentrated on scooping a large dollop of peanut butter up and putting it in his mouth. He pushed aside all other thoughts.

He was in control. He could do as he pleased.

A drop of water fell from his hair and landed on the back of the hand clutching the peanut butter jar. Alex stared at it. Watched it as a rolled across his skin. Followed it with his eyes as it fell from his hand to his knee. It was like a teardrop. Like a single teardrop. 

Alex glared. He pulled back his arm and hurled the peanut butter across the kitchen with all his might. He screamed.

No.

He pulled back the scream along with a lungful of air. He held his breath.

He needed control.

He let the breath out slowly. 

He was in control.

He pushed himself off the counter and landed lightly on his feet. Leaving his towel where it had fallen on the floor, he headed down the hall towards his bedroom. He closed the door behind him and went directly to his stereo. He grabbed a CD from the painstakingly neatly organised rack beside the sound system and put it inside the player. He turned the volume up as loud as it would go.

He turned off all the lights in the room, climbed into the bed, and surrendered himself to the music.

He was in control, but what was he controlling?

* * *

Hamish glanced at his watch again, then stood on this tiptoes to look over the heads of the people in the crowd. The conductor had just made the last boarding call for his train and Hamish was still holding out hope that Alex would show up. Except part of him knew that Alex wasn’t coming.

“Young man, are you getting on?” The station attendant asked.

Hamish looked out over the the quickly thinning crowd once more, before nodding, grabbing his bag, and getting onto the train.

He’d really thought that Alex would come. He’d hoped he would come. And now…

Hamish found an empty seat near the back of the train and put his bag in the overhead carrier. He sat down. Maybe Alex was stuck in traffic and he’d come running in at that last moment, just barely making it in time. He’d board the train, all sweaty and out of breath and find Hamish right away. Time would slow down as they saw each other…then they run into each other’s arms. And Hamish would whisper “I thought you wouldn’t come” and Alex would answer “As if I’d ever let you go” and they would kiss and then sit down together as the train rolled out of the station and carried them into their future; they wouldn’t know what laid ahead, but that didn’t matter because they would have each other.

Maybe Hamish had seen too many movies. But, once long ago, Alex had promised him a happily ever after and Alex had always good on his promises…

The train whistle blew and it started rolling. Hamish held his breath, waiting for Alex to arrive…

He never came. 

* * *

Alex woke cold and hungry. He’d fallen asleep lying across the bed completely naked and his only meal within the last twenty-four hours had been the few scoops of peanut butter he’d eaten before he’d lost control.

He sneezed as he got out of bed and shuffled over to his dresser. He found a pair of jeans and slid them on over his hips, not bothering with putting on underwear first. His nose was running and his head felt groggy. He grabbed a t-shirt and pulled it own before making his way over to the stereo and shutting off the much too loud music that had been repeating. His mouth felt thick and disgusting. He headed to the bathroom.

His reflection in the mirror looked as bad as he felt: his skin pale, his hair shooting out everywhere, his eyes just…tired.

He turned away from the glass and found his toothbrush. He concentrated on wetting the bristles under the flow of the faucet, squirting a trail of toothpaste across it, wetting it again, and raising it to his mouth. He started to count: teen circular motions across the front of his teeth, ten motions across the leftmost teeth, ten motions across the rightmost teeth, five scrubs against the top of his rightmost bottom teeth, five against the top of the leftmost bottom teeth, five against the bottom of the leftmost bottom teeth, five against the bottom of of the rightmost top teeth, spit, and repeat.

Two minutes and thirty seconds later, Alex rinsed his mouth out with water, put away his toothbrush, and turned away from the sink. His eyes landed on the pile of clothes he’d shed before his shower and had left on the floor. He picked the clothes up and carried them over to his hamper, going through the motions of checking the pockets of his jeans before dropping them in. He found his cell phone and the keys to his motorcycle. 

He stared at his phone. He’d shut it off a week ago because he’d been sick of getting phone calls from everyone except the people he wanted to receive calls from. He’d only been carrying it around with him out of force of habit. He wondered how many calls he’s missed in the last week. He wondered how many were from Seb. How many were from Hamish?

He pressed the button on the top of the phone and watched as it slowly powered itself up. The background loaded first. It was just a solid blue color, meaningless to everyone except Alex. It had taken him a very long time to find this exact shade of blue. In the end, he’d to buy paints and mix them himself, before snapping a picture of it. Except, no one knew he had done this. And if they knew, they didn’t understand why.

The rest of the screen loaded. Alex waited ten seconds and…the phone vibrated in his hand. He had voicemails.

There was thirteen voicemails in total. Ten of them he deleted right away.

One was from Seb:  _Alex, this is Sebastian. I just wanted to tell you I’m going to be gone for a while. Take care of yourself._

Two were from Hamish. The first one had come around the time Alex had gotten into the shower. Alex listened to it and his heart swelled in his chest, filling with pain and panic. Hamish was leaving. Hamish was…and…but…Alex…

He couldn’t breath. He dragged in a breath and held it, but his control wouldn’t come back

Hamish’s second message had come only a few minutes ago while Alex had been brushing his teeth:  _Alex, it’s Hamish. I know I said that I would understand if you didn’t come with me, but… I lied. I don’t understand. I thought you would come. I thought I meant something to you. I thought I meant enough that you wouldn’t just let me go like this. I guess I was wrong. I’m so mad at you right now. After everything that’s happened, you just let me go like this. Can you imagine how that makes me feel? What it makes me think? Was this this between us just another part of your father’s game? Did I really mean nothing to you? Well fuck you then! Fuck you! I’m in Exeter right now and I’m catching the next plane out of here and if I never see you again it’ll be too fucking soon!_

Alex screamed and threw his phone. It hit the bathroom door with a resounding thump before falling onto the cold tile floor. Alex screamed again and fell to his knees. Tears welled in his eyes. He grabbed handfuls of his hair and yanked at it while a near ungodly sound welled up in his chest and escaped his mouth. He tried to pull back the sound and hold his breath, but it didn’t help. 

Where had his control gone?

* * *

On a plane just cleared to take off from the Exeter International Airport, Hamish sat in a seat by the window and stared out of it. He tried to pretend that he wasn’t waiting for Alex to show. But he was. He was waiting. And Alex wasn’t coming.

**End.**

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to check out the aforementioned Tumblr (again that is 1and1is2) there are the starts of some other Parentlock fics (and a Criminal Minds fic) that won't be posted here until after they are complete there.


End file.
